{"id":108636,"date":"2020-11-13T16:08:26","date_gmt":"2020-11-13T23:08:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=108636"},"modified":"2020-11-13T16:08:26","modified_gmt":"2020-11-13T23:08:26","slug":"sri-lanka-desperately-needs-a-strategic-transparent-and-comprehensive-state-land-management-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/11\/13\/sri-lanka-desperately-needs-a-strategic-transparent-and-comprehensive-state-land-management-policy\/","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka desperately needs a strategic, transparent and comprehensive State land management policy"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Raj Gonsalkorale<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Bim\nSaviya, the MCC Agreement and now a directive on residual\u201d land has muddied\nthe waters in relation to State Land policy and management<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Land management\nin Sri Lanka appears to be all over the place. Several ministries and\ngovernment departments appear to be responsible for State land management\nincluding for forests management, Wild Life conservation area management,\nresidual land management (latest to hit the headlines, see below), agriculture\nland management and Tea, Rubber and coconut land management.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The latest headline grabbing news item in\nthe LankaWeb News Circular enabling\ngovernment to hand over forests to companies enforced\u201d on the 9th<\/sup>\nof November 2020 states that In a blatant move of violating eco-conservation\nlaws, the government has issued a circular, 1\/2020, enabling them to hand over\nlands to multinational companies and businessmen, by revoking the Circular\n“05\/2001”, “02\/2006″, 05\/98” issued for the protection\nof the remaining remnant forests for the acquisition of lands required for the\nNational Physical Plan implemented till 2050 and for the release of lands for\nthe implementation of the MCC Agreement\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The circular referred to here may be in\nrespect of whatever is termed residual\u201d land, but the absence of a transparent policy has given rise to suspicion and\nspeculation on the intent of successive governments about their designs on\nState land.  The real intent of the MCC\nAgreement has been in question and many have questioned the bona fides of this\nagreement.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A report on the Land Tenure Considerations in Sri Lanka\u2019s\nProposed National REDD+ Strategy by the Sri Lanka UN-REDD Programme in April,\n2016 states that in Sri Lanka, 82.25 percent of the\ncountry’s land is owned by the State while only\n17.75 percent is privately owned, reflecting a history of centralized\ncontrol over land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This 82.25% of land belongs equally to the 22 million people\nof the country living now and the future generations yet to be born. This land\nis held in trust by all governments on behalf of both components of owners. A\nland policy therefore cannot benefit a few ministers and parliamentarians and\ntheir dependents, but the current and yet to be born Sri Lankans. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Neither can a land policy benefit a country other than Sri\nLanka. Selling State land to foreigners will not benefit Sri Lanka. In fact, it\nwill have a negative effect in the long term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is presumed that State lands include forest land, wild\nlife conservation lands, wild life lands, agriculture land and estate land that\nbelongs to the State, unproductive land distributed amongst these (probably\nwhat is termed residual land) and other classified lands. It is not clear\nwhether temple, church, mosque and kovil land is included as State land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the Parliament Acts that has kindled the fires of\nsuspicion regarding vested interests and ulterior motives, is the land\nregistration Act aka Bim Saviya, introduced in 1997 and implemented in 2007.\nThis has so far registered only 0.72 million\nblocks out of 12 Million blocks of land. This registration is less than 5% of\nthe total number of blocks identified. It has taken 12 years to achieve this.<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A question arises what land is being\nregistered. Is it the 82.25 % which is State land\nor the 17.75 % which is private land?\nIt is said that the registration procedure is very cumbersome and does not\nrecognise Sri Lankan context laws, customs and practices, as the law is based\non the Australian Torrens title registration law. The next question that arises\nis why State land registration is cumbersome and whether there is a need to issue\ntitles for State land. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nland component of the MCC Agreement is insistent on land titles being\nregistered under Bim Saviya. If State land registration has to be done\naccording to Bim Saviya, it could be interpreted that the MCC Agreement is all\nto do with State land, and as increasing productivity of State land is not\ndirectly related to its title, it can be assumed that issuing titles for State\nland has an ulterior motive. After all, it is State land, and the suspicion\nthat the real intent of the MCC Agreement is to get the government to privatise\nState land by selling them to locals and foreigners is not unfounded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nlatest salvo in land management with a circular referring to residual\u201d land\nagain raises suspicion as to what might be regarded as residual\u201d land,\nespecially as its management including disposal for development work, has been\nassigned to Provincial and District Secretaries. It is well known that\npolitical pressure and influence over these officials is rife in Sri Lanka and\nthat boundaries on the so called residual land could expand into forests and\nwild life conservation areas. Development work could mean different things to\ndifferent people. Cutting down valuable trees in a forest, now reclassified as\nresidual land, might be regarded as development work by some!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\ninfluence and pressure that politicians exert over all segments of the administrative\nservice is known. Politicians in general do not enjoy the trust of the people\nas most are known to initially cover the costs associated with their election\nonce in power and thereafter accumulating enough wealth for themselves and many\ngenerations to come. Little do they realise that their future generations may\nnot have a country to call their own if land is sold to foreigners or a world\nto live in if the damage they do to the environment for some immediate gain\ncontinues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A\nland policy must essentially be on the basis of (a) obtaining more with less,\nnot the other way about. Using less land to produce more will ensure something\nis left behind for future generations as there will not be any land left if\nmore and more land is used by the present generation. (b) Research must be the\ncornerstone for increasing productivity as countries like Israel has shown with\ngreat success (c) increasing forest cover and not reducing it. Forest cover\nwill save the environment and the climate (d) and wild life sanctuary land\nbeing increased and not decreased as these play a significant role in the\nsustainability of the eco system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A\nland policy has to be for the long term, for generations yet to be born, hence\nthe need for a strategic policy. It needs to be transparent as it is not\nsomething for today\u2019s custodians to hide from the true owners, the present and\nfuture generations of the country. The current owners of State land, through\ntheir votes must also have a say in what they intend leaving behind for the yet\nunborn generations. There cannot be a place for secret deals that circumvent\nscrutiny and responsibility. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally\n,once a comprehensive State land policy is determined by the people through\ntheir representatives, both at central level and provincial level, its\nmanagement should be assigned to \nadministrators to implement without fear or favour.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Raj Gonsalkorale Bim Saviya, the MCC Agreement and now a directive on residual\u201d land has muddied the waters in relation to State Land policy and management Land management in Sri Lanka appears to be all over the place. Several ministries and government departments appear to be responsible for State land management including for forests […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-108636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-raj-gonsalkorale"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108636\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}